Lincoln 'keyboard warrior' who stirred up racial hatred during protests jailed

[Emrys]

Wayne O'Rourke was paid £1,400 a month for his account on X

A Lincoln man who admitted publishing written material online to stir up racial hatred during the recent protests has been jailed for three years. Wayne O’Rourke, who had over 90,000 followers on his X account, expressed support for the recent protests and offered advice to protesters on how to remain anonymous.

Among the 35-year-old's posts on 29 July was a reference to the death of three children in Southport alleging it was a terrorist attack carried out by a Muslim. A further post read: "People of Southport where are you, get out on the street."

That post had 1.7 million views, the court was told. Other posts showed a picture of the County Road mosque in Liverpool and a picture of a burning car in Sunderland. This was accompanied by a post which read: "Sunderland, go on lads"
...
O'Rourke of Salix Approach, Lincoln, admitted publishing written material online to stir up racial hatred between 28 July and 8 August. The court heard O'Rourke had no previous convictions but was cautioned for fraud in 2018.

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/lincoln-keyboard-warrior-who-stirred-9489922

If he wasn't declaring that £1400 a month for tax or social security purposes, jail may be just the beginning of his worries.

It seems I must have blocked this heinous specimen on Twitter ages ago. Others who didn't have catalogued some of his posts, which included targeted online harassment of a number of women over an extended period, though that didn't figure in the charges against him.


Apparently he ran two Twitter accounts, both of which are still technically active but dormant at time of writing, and both of which I found I had blocked:



On May 30, he posted on his WayneGb888 account, which is evidently his less active backup:

Don’t ask me how but I’ve some how got my main account back.

Maybe he's less overjoyed about that now. O'Rourke tweeted a week ago:

Police: Certainly, with pleasure. Happy Sunday.

Maybe this tweet of O'Rourke's is less funny to him now, or maybe now even funny to the rest of us after all:

Link to tweet

Sick of It 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇸
@WayneGB888

My Uber driver asks a lot of questions, and to be honest, he’s got a bit of a bad attitude

The case has sent a ripple of self-centred concern and entirely predictable ranting about "Communism" and "two-tier justice" and worse though the ranks of rightwing trolls on Twitter. One claimed to have identified the woman on Twitter who "grassed" on O'Rourke, though with 100,000 followers and thousands of tweets to his name, at least one of which got 1.7 million views, his activities were hardly a secret.

[LeftishBrit]

1. What s horrible person

And I'd like to know who was paying him!

[Emrys]

2. Musk was

O'Rourke paid £9.60 per month for a Twitter Blue subscription and was eligible for Twitter's ad revenue sharing programme, which pays a certain amount per thousand ad views. O'Rourke managed to be controversial enough that he gained views from accounts which liked and responded to his output along with those which objected to it and argued with him or quote-tweeted him.

It's a good argument for blocking trolls on sight rather than engaging with them.

[T_i_B]

3. It's a daft system on Twitter at present

Last edited Sun Aug 18, 2024, 03:55 AM - Edit history (1)

One where the daftest views get amplified in the "for you" section, which is making the site increasingly unusable. Especially with all the ridiculousness in the runup to US presidential elections.

As an example, the tweets that Space Karen thinks that what I really want to see on Twitter at present are from American Christian Nationalist accounts. Very, very extreme right wing politics married to terrible theology.

I prefer more thoughtful Conservatives but no, Space Karen thinks he can micro manage what I see to provide more idiotic tweets instead.

[Emrys]

4. I think his warped rationale is that it will increase engagement

He wants you to be so incensed by what you read that you feel driven to respond, and so the clicks go on and the ad revenue rolls in.

I rely on Twitter lists and browser links to various accounts rather than what Twitter serves up to me, but I will take an idle look at the "What's happening" tab maybe once a day.

There's some stuff of interest there, along with stuff in languages I don't know. For the rest, I use it as a handy list of accounts I can happily instantly block!

Your move, Musky (who I also have long had blocked - I see more about or from him on DU than I ever do on Twitter).

[T_i_B]

5. That's another problem

Space Karen's own tweets are heavily promoted, to the point where you have to either mute or block him in order to make the site useable. And that's been the case for some time.

Other people who he insists on promoting heavily include Tucker Carlson, 30p Lee and accounts bemoaning a perceived lack of classical architecture and sculpture. Again, accounts the algorithm promotes in this manner end up being accounts getting blocked.

[Emrys]

6. Yeah, I've always avoided subjecting myself to Twitter's algorithms as much as I can

I'm a very passive user, which helps - never post, "like" anything or follow anyone, but I've grown a somewhat overdeveloped blocking finger.

My experience is none the worse for not seeing Musk's gibberings and those of the accounts he favours on a regular basis. At times, Twitter can even seem wholesome for me! I do get some backwash about it from some of the decent accounts I check out, but less than I see on DU on a regular basis, and often quite funny and savage.

Musk has gotten trickier about blocking ads, though. Initially, you could just block any ad account that appeared in replies etc. and that was it done. Then he imposed a nag pop-up "inviting" you to subscribe to a blue tick each time you blocked an ad, imposing another click to tell it to go away. Now he's added the trick that if you block an ad in replies, you get bounced to the OP at the top and also have to click "Fuck off, Musky, in your dreams, innit" at the subscribe nag pop-up.

It doesn't exactly promote goodwill, either towards him or the advertisers (some of which are actually causes I might otherwise support, though I'd rather they didn't waste their money advertising on Twitter, so I'd have previously blocked them anyway in the hope of saving them some cash).